Peace Psychology: Definitions, Scope, and Impact

AbstractAlthough peace psychology has deep roots in philosophy, peace psychology did not take shape as a coherent area of interest until the second half of the twentieth century. Since then, the growth has been remarkable. InPeace Psychology: A Comprehensive Introduction, Blumberg (2007) examined trends in citations to peace psychology using the PsycINFO database and found a large, significant increase in citations between the 1970s and 1980s, and again after the 1990s. These increases were in absolute terms as well as in proportion to the growing number of records. In the current article, some definitions of peace psychology that attempt to delineate the scope of this emerging field are offered. Then, peace psychology is situated in various geohistorical contexts around the world, and finally, some contributions of peace psychology to peace will be discussed.